Chap. II: Of the extent of this Influence of Fortune

The effect of this influence of fortune is, first, to diminish
our sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose
from the most laudable or blamable intentions, when they fail of
producing their proposed effects: and, secondly, to increase our
sense of the merit or demerit of actions, beyond what is due to
the motives or affections from which they proceed, when they
accidentally give occasion either to extraordinary pleasure or
pain.

1. First, I say, though the intentions of any person should be
ever so proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or ever so
improper and malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in
producing their effects, his merit seems imperfect in the one
case, and his demerit incomplete in the other. Nor is this
irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who are immediately
affected by the consequences of any action. It is felt, in some
measure, even by the impartial spectator. The man who solicits
an office for another, without obtaining it, is regarded as his
friend, and seems to deserve his love and affection. But the man
who not only solicits, but procures it, is more peculiarly
considered as his patron and benefactor, and is entitled to his
respect and gratitude. The person obliged, we are apt to think,
may, with some justice, imagine himself on a level with the
first: but we cannot enter into his sentiments, if he does not
feel himself inferior to the second. It is common indeed to say,
that we are equally obliged to the man who has endeavoured to
serve us, as to him who actually did so. It is the speech which
we constantly make upon every unsuccessful attempt of this kind;
but which, like all other fine speeches, must be understood with
a grain of allowance. The sentiments which a man of generosity
entertains for the friend who fails, may often indeed be nearly
the same with those which he conceives for him who succeeds: and
the more generous he is, the more nearly will those sentiments
approach to an exact level. With the truly generous, to be
beloved, to be esteemed by those whom they themselves think
worthy of esteem, gives more pleasure, and thereby excites more
gratitude, than all the advantages which they can ever expect
from those sentiments. When they lose those advantages
therefore, they seem to lose but a trifle, which is scarce worth
regarding. They still however lose something. Their pleasure
therefore, and consequently their gratitude, is not perfectly
complete: and accordingly if, between the friend who fails and
the friend who succeeds, all other circumstances are equal,
there will, even in the noblest and the best mind, be some
little difference of affection in favour of him who succeeds.
Nay, so unjust are mankind in this respect, that though the
intended benefit should be procured, yet if it is not procured
by the means of a particular benefactor, they are apt to think
that less gratitude is due to the man, who with the best
intentions in the world could do no more than help it a little
forward. As their gratitude is in this case divided among the
different persons who contributed to their pleasure, a smaller
share of it seems due to any one. Such a person, we hear men
commonly say, intended no doubt to serve us; and we really
believe exerted himself to the utmost of his abilities for that
purpose. We are not, however, obliged to him for this benefit;
since, had it not been for the concurrence of others, all that
he could have done would never have brought it about. This
consideration, they imagine, should, even in the eyes of the
impartial spectator, diminish the debt which they owe to him.
The person himself who has unsuccessfully endeavoured to confer
a benefit, has by no means the same dependency upon the
gratitude of the man whom he meant to oblige, nor the same sense
of his own merit towards him, which he would have had in the
case of success.

Even the merit of talents and abilities which some accident has
hindered from producing their effects, seems in some measure
imperfect, even to those who are fully convinced of their
capacity to produce them. The general who has been hindered by
the envy of ministers from gaining some great advantage over the
enemies of his country, regrets the loss of the opportunity for
ever after. Nor is it only upon account of the public that he
regrets it. He laments that he was hindered from performing an
action which would have added a new lustre to his character in
his own eyes, as well as in those of every other person. It
satisfies neither himself nor others to reflect that the plan or
design was all that depended on him, that no greater capacity
was required to execute it than what was necessary to concert
it: that he was allowed to be every way capable of executing
it, and that had he been permitted to go on, success was
infallible. He still did not execute it; and though he might
deserve all the approbation which is due to a magnanimous and
great design, he still wanted the actual merit of having
performed a great action. To take the management of any affair
of public concern from the man who has almost brought it to a
conclusion, is regarded as the most invidious injustice. As he
had done so much, he should, we think, have been allowed to
acquire the complete merit of putting an end to it. It was
objected to Pompey, that he came in upon the victories of
Lucullus, and gathered those laurels which were due to the
fortune and valour of another. The glory of Lucullus, it seems,
was less complete even in the opinion of his own friends, when
he was not permitted to finish that conquest which his conduct
and courage had put in the power of almost any man to finish. It
mortifies an architect when his plans are either not executed at
all, or when they are so far altered as to spoil the effect of
the building. The plan, however, is all that depends upon the
architect. The whole of his genius is, to good judges, as
completely discovered in that as in the actual execution. But a
plan does not, even to the most intelligent, give the same
pleasure as a noble and magnificent building. They may discover
as much both of taste and genius in the one as in the other. But
their effects are still vastly different, and the amusement
derived from the first, never approaches to the wonder and
admiration which are sometimes excited by the second. We may
believe of many men, that their talents are superior to those of
Caesar and Alexander; and that in the same situations they would
perform still greater actions. In the mean time, however, we do
not behold them with that astonishment and admiration with which
those two heroes have been regarded in all ages and nations. The
calm judgments of the mind may approve of them more, but they
want the splendour of great actions to dazzle and transport it.
The superiority of virtues and talents has not, even upon those
who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the
superiority of atchievements.

As the merit of an unsuccessful attempt to do good seems thus,
in the eyes of ungrateful mankind, to be diminished by the
miscarriage, so does likewise the demerit of an unsuccessful
attempt to do evil. The design to commit a crime, how clearly
soever it may be proved, is scarce ever punished with the same
severity as the actual commission of it. The case of treason is
perhaps the only exception. That crime immediately affecting the
being of the government itself, the government is naturally more
jealous of it than of any other. In the punishment of treason,
the sovereign resents the injuries which are immediately done to
himself: in the punishment of other crimes, he resents those
which are done to other men. It is his own resentment which he
indulges in the one case: it is that of his subjects which by
sympathy he enters into in the other. In the first case,
therefore, as he judges in his own cause, he is very apt to be
more violent and sanguinary in his punishments than the
impartial spectator can approve of. His resentment too rises
here upon smaller occasions, and does not always, as in other
cases, wait for the perpetration of the crime, or even for the
attempt to commit it. A treasonable concert, though nothing has
been done, or even attempted in consequence of it, nay, a
treasonable conversation, is in many countries punished in the
same manner as the actual commission of treason. With regard to
all other crimes, the mere design, upon which no attempt has
followed, is seldom punished at all, and is never punished
severely. A criminal design, and a criminal action, it may be
said indeed, do not necessarily suppose the same degree of
depravity, and ought not therefore to be subjected to the same
punishment. We are capable, it may be said, of resolving, and
even of taking measures to execute, many things which, when it
comes to the point, we feel ourselves altogether incapable of
executing. But this reason can have no place when the design has
been carried the length of the last attempt. The man, however,
who fires a pistol at his enemy but misses him, is punished with
death by the laws of scarce any country. By the old law of
Scotland, though he should wound him, yet, unless death ensues
within a certain time, the assassin is not liable to the last
punishment. The resentment of mankind, however, runs so high
against this crime, their terror for the man who shows himself
capable of committing it, is so great, that the mere attempt to
commit it ought in all countries to be capital. The attempt to
commit smaller crimes is almost always punished very lightly,
and sometimes is not punished at all. The thief, whose hand has
been caught in his neighbour's pocket before he had taken any
thing out of it, is punished with ignominy only. If he had got
time to take away an handkerchief, he would have been put to
death. The house-breaker, who has been found setting a ladder to
his neighbour's window, but had not got into it, is not exposed
to the capital punishment. The attempt to ravish is not punished
as a rape. The attempt to seduce a married woman is not punished
at all, though seduction is punished severely. Our resentment
against the person who only attempted to do a mischief, is
seldom so strong as to bear us out in inflicting the same
punishment upon him, which we should have thought due if he had
actually done it. In the one case, the joy of our deliverance
alleviates our sense of the atrocity of his conduct; in the
other, the grief of our misfortune increases it. His real
demerit, however, is undoubtedly the same in both cases, since
his intentions were equally criminal; and there is in this
respect, therefore, an irregularity in the sentiments of all
men, and a consequent relaxation of discipline in the laws of, I
believe, all nations, of the most civilized, as well as of the
most barbarous. The humanity of a civilized people disposes them
either to dispense with, or to mitigate punishments wherever
their natural indignation is not goaded on by the consequences
of the crime. Barbarians, on the other hand, when no actual
consequence has happened from any action, are not apt to be very
delicate or inquisitive about the motives.

The person himself who either from passion, or from the
influence of bad company, has resolved, and perhaps taken
measures to perpetrate some crime, but who has fortunately been
prevented by an accident which put it out of his power, is sure,
if he has any remains of conscience, to regard this event all
his life after as a great and signal deliverance. He can never
think of it without returning thanks to Heaven for having been
thus graciously pleased to save him from the guilt in which he
was just ready to plunge himself, and to hinder him from
rendering all the rest of his life a scene of horror, remorse,
and repentance. But though his hands are innocent, he is
conscious that his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually
executed what he was so fully resolved upon. It gives great ease
to his conscience, however, to consider that the crime was not
executed, though he knows that the failure arose from no virtue
in him. He still considers himself as less deserving of
punishment and resentment; and this good fortune either
diminishes, or takes away altogether, all sense of guilt. To
remember how much he was resolved upon it, has no other effect
than to make him regard his escape as the greater and more
miraculous: for he still fancies that he has escaped, and he
looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was
exposed, with that terror, with which one who is in safety may
sometimes remember the hazard he was in of falling over a
precipice, and shudder with horror at the thought.

2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to
increase our sense of the merit or demerit of actions beyond
what is due to the motives or affection from which they proceed,
when they happen to give occasion to extraordinary pleasure or
pain. The agreeable or disagreeable effects of the action often
throw a shadow of merit or demerit upon the agent, though in his
intention there was nothing that deserved either praise or
blame, or at least that deserved them in the degree in which we
are apt to bestow them. Thus, even the messenger of bad news is
disagreeable to us, and, on the contrary, we feel a sort of
gratitude for the man who brings us good tidings. For a moment
we look upon them both as the authors, the one of our good, the
other of our bad fortune, and regard them in some measure as if
they had really brought about the events which they only give an
account of. The first author of our joy is naturally the object
of a transitory gratitude: we embrace him with warmth and
affection, and should be glad, during the instant of our
prosperity, to reward him as for some signal service. By the
custom of all courts, the officer, who brings the news of a
victory, is entitled to considerable preferments, and the
general always chuses one of his principal favourites to go upon
so agreeable an errand. The first author of our sorrow is, on
the contrary, just as naturally the object of a transitory
resentment. We can scarce avoid looking upon him with chagrin
and uneasiness; and the rude and brutal are apt to vent upon him
that spleen which his intelligence gives occasion to. Tigranes,
king of Armenia, struck off the head of the man who brought him
the first account of the approach of a formidable enemy. To
punish in this manner the author of bad tidings, seems barbarous
and inhuman: yet, to reward the messenger of good news, is not
disagreeable to us; we think it suitable to the bounty of
kings. But why do we make this difference, since, if there is
no fault in the one, neither is there any merit in the other? It
is because any sort of reason seems sufficient to authorize the
exertion of the social and benevolent affections, but it
requires the most solid and substantial to make us enter into
that of the unsocial and malevolent.

But though in general we are averse to enter into the unsocial
and malevolent affections, though we lay it down for a rule that
we ought never to approve of their gratification, unless so far
as the malicious and unjust intention of the person, against
whom they are directed, renders him their proper object; yet,
upon some occasions, we relax of this severity. When the
negligence of one man has occasioned some unintended damage to
another, we generally enter so far into the resentment of the
sufferer, as to approve of his inflicting a punishment upon the
offender much beyond what the offence would have appeared to
deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.

There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve
some chastisement though it should occasion no damage to any
body. Thus, if a person should throw a large stone over a wall
into a public street without giving warning to those who might
be passing by, and without regarding where it was likely to
fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some chastisement. A very
accurate police would punish so absurd an action, even though it
had done no mischief. The person who has been guilty of it,
shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of
others. There is real injustice in his conduct. He wantonly
exposes his neighbour to what no man in his senses would chuse
to expose himself, and evidently wants that sense of what is due
to his fellow-creatures which is the basis of justice and of
society. Gross negligence therefore is, in the law, said to be
almost equal to malicious design. When any unlucky
consequences happen from such carelessness, the person who has
been guilty of it is often punished as if he had really intended
those consequences; and his conduct, which was only thoughtless
and insolent, and what deserved some chastisement, is considered
as atrocious, and as liable to the severest punishment. Thus if,
by the imprudent action above-mentioned, he should accidentally
kill a man, he is, by the laws of many countries, particularly
by the old law of Scotland, liable to the last punishment. And
though this is no doubt excessively severe, it is not altogether
inconsistent with our natural sentiments. Our just indignation
against the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is exasperated
by our sympathy with the unfortunate sufferer. Nothing, however,
would appear more shocking to our natural sense of equity, than
to bring a man to the scaffold merely for having thrown a stone
carelessly into the street without hurting any body. The folly
and inhumanity of his conduct, however, would in this case be
the same; but still our sentiments would be very different. The
consideration of this difference may satisfy us how much the
indignation, even of the spectator, is apt to be animated by the
actual consequences of the action. In cases of this kind there
will, if I am not mistaken, be found a great degree of severity
in the laws of almost all nations; as I have already observed
that in those of an opposite kind there was a very general
relaxation of discipline.

There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in
it any sort of injustice. The person who is guilty of it treats
his neighbours as he treats himself, means no harm to any body,
and is far from entertaining any insolent contempt for the
safety and happiness of others. He is not, however, so careful
and circumspect in his conduct as he ought to be, and deserves
upon this account some degree of blame and censure, but no sort
of punishment. Yet if by a negligence of this kind he should
occasion some damage to another person, he is by the laws of, I
believe, all countries, obliged to compensate it. And though
this is no doubt a real punishment, and what no mortal would
have thought of inflicting upon him, had it not been for the
unlucky accident which his conduct gave occasion to; yet this
decision of the law is approved of by the natural sentiments of
all mankind. Nothing, we think, can be more just than that one
man should not suffer by the carelessness of another; and that
the damage occasioned by blamable negligence, should be made up
by the person who was guilty of it.

There is another species of negligence, which consists
merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and
circumspection, with regard to all the possible consequences of
our actions. The want of this painful attention, when no bad
consequences follow from it, is so far from being regarded as
blamable, that the contrary quality is rather considered as
such. That timid circumspection which is afraid of every thing,
is never regarded as a virtue, but as a quality which more than
any other incapacitates for action and business. Yet when, from
a want of this excessive care, a person happens to occasion some
damage to another, he is often by the law obliged to compensate
it. Thus, by the Aquilian law, the man, who not being able to
manage a horse that had accidentally taken fright, should happen
to ride down his neighbour' s slave, is obliged to compensate
the damage. When an accident of this kind happens, we are apt
to think that he ought not to have rode such a horse, and to
regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levity; though
without this accident we should not only have made no such
reflection, but should have regarded his refusing it as the
effect of timid weakness, and of an anxiety about merely
possible events, which it is to no purpose to be aware of. The
person himself, who by an accident even of this kind has
involuntarily hurt another, seems to have some sense of his own
ill desert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the
sufferer to express his concern for what has happened, and to
make every acknowledgment in his power. If he has any
sensibility, he necessarily desires to compensate the damage,
and to do every thing he can to appease that animal resentment,
which he is sensible will be apt to arise in the breast of the
sufferer. To make no apology, to offer no atonement, is regarded
as the highest brutality. Yet why should he make an apology more
than any other person? Why should he, since he was equally
innocent with any other bystander, be thus singled out from
among all mankind, to make up for the bad fortune of another?
This task would surely never be imposed upon him, did not even
the impartial spectator feel some indulgence for what may be
regarded as the unjust resentment of that other.